Thirty-two years ago today – Monday, October 3, 1994 – the first-ever public event (as far as I know) for the nascent and then-named Lesbian and Gay History Month took place at Lucas Hall 100 at the University of Missouri at St. Louis (UMSL), where I was a nighttime graduate student in history while serving…
New Biography: An LGBTQ Pioneer Who Lived Most of His Life in the Closet
In October 1965, the Rev. Robert Watson Wood, along with three other protestors, appeared on the cover of The Ladder, the monthly publication of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first national organization for lesbian women in the United States. The cover photo was taken the previous June, when Rev. Wood and two dozen others —…
America 250: Queer Revolutionaries
Much has been written this year about the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and much has been written during the past few decades, including full biographies, about the queer (at least, queer-adjacent) lives of three who served in George Washington’s Continental Army: Deborah Sampson, Casimir Pulaski, and Baron von Steuben. This piece provides…